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A bit. I have a lot to say about courage because um this is one of the attributes of Jesus and one that he's shown me a lot of. But I want to read a part of Psalm 94 for the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. The judgment shall return unto righteousness and all the upright and heart shall follow it. Who will rise up for me against the evildoers or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity. Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence when I said my foot slip eth thy mercy. O Lord held me up in the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul. So um here's something about the Psalms if they were written in plain English, and I know there are translations that attempt to do this. But if they were written in plain English in a way that conveyed the intended meaning of the author, you, I don't know how to even describe how powerful that would be to read. But I will tell you that if it were conveyed that way. I the Lord would need to judge this world for the vast difference between how one should be and how everyone is given those truths. I, I used to love reading the Psalms. In fact, I took all the , the wisdom books from the scriptures and I, I put them together in one paperback volume that you can get on Amazon for print cost. And I did that just for myself, I figured maybe someone else would want it. But I like reading scriptures. Um I, I do, I do time with the Lord uh in the morning and in the evening and my time in the evening all I do is I sit and I read and I write notes by hand um in bed before I go to sleep and um I, I like paper copies and I wanted a copy of Sirach in the words of Solomon, which are apocryphal books that were originally in the King James, but got taken out after the fact. And uh I find a lot of value value in those. And so I just, I figured I'd just put the wisdom stuff together. I put Psalms and Proverbs and stuff in there anyway. And so I, I, I'm saying this is evidence for how much I enjoyed reading these books in the past. And today I really struggle to sit and read Psalms because it affects me so much that I can't get very far. But um I was about to get more into writing and I hit something here and I just wanted to share it. Um And I know where this is gonna go. So please bear with me. We'll get there. I, I have to be fast because I just don't have much time left this morning. Here is a, a principle and a promise when you follow the Lord completely with all of your heart, mind and strength, anything that anyone does to cause you harm in the wisdom and the power of God, it will return to you as a blessing every single time and the worse it is the better it will be in time. I will give you a long form argument for that. And I will cite many scriptures. But for now, I'm just telling you that if you find yourself in a place where you're struggling, you're struggling to carry the weight of the burden that you feel. I just want to tell you turn to the Lord with all your heart might mind and strength. Don't worry about yourself, worry about the Lord and you just focus on being his servant. Just focus on figuring out his purpose and following it with all of your heart might mind and strength. And I keep saying all those words because you really have to think about it. You really have to feel it. You really have to be committed and you have to use all the faculties that he gives you to use your life towards those ends. But if you do this, if you do this, he will ensure that everything turns to your blessing. And let's let's talk now about um how he is the good shepherd. There are people who shy away from following the voice of the Lord because they're afraid of what he might say that you find scripture after scripture where people didn't dare ask Jesus questions, they didn't dare follow up on things. He said that they knew it was really obvious that what he said was a big deal or maybe what he said, didn't quite make sense. There's a place in Mark, for example, I was just reading yesterday where Jesus says that he's gonna die and then three days later, he's going to come back to life. He says he's going to be killed and rise from the dead three days later. And it says that they didn't dare ask him what he meant by that, that, that they were confused about it, but they didn't ask him, they didn't dare to. And that's really sad when the closest people wouldn't ask, you'd think they want, they would wanna know everything they could about him, but they had their limits. They had their lines in the sand. And what you'll find is that any time you're looking down, there will be lines in the sand. If you want to go to a place where there are no limits, you have to look up. You have to look up. There is no limit to the love of God. It's limitless. You pay any price for you or for me, the Lord will not cast off His people. Neither will he forsake His inheritance. If you live according to the purpose of God, he is your inheritance and you are his. He is looking forward to the joy he will feel when you culminate his path. And as you ascend in his path and it is a ladder, you climb up by him is what he says in John, you climb up his path, a road that's flat on the ground. It's a ladder up. And when you climb up by him, you come his inheritance and he becomes your inheritance and he will not cast you off because you are his. What does that mean? So an earthly shepherd will do anything to protect his flock. We read a good, a good earthly shepherd. We read about how David fought off a bear and a lion and all he had was his sling. And so that that's a one way fight. That's not a wise fight to get into, but he did it. He did it twice. Why ? Cause he loved his sheep. You know the funny thing about David is his family, hated him and still he loved his sheep. So he didn't protect them out of duty to his family or maybe he did. I mean I'm not trying to say he didn't respect his father or whatever, or honor the duty that was assigned to him . I'm, I'm pretty sure he did do that. But what I'm saying is a, a normal kid would not have risked his life like that for sheep. He was assigned to protect. He'd say, well, I mean, sure I'll keep him from running off. But if a lion comes, what do you want me to do? But in the army, we had to memorize this thing, this, this uh general order. And I heard that maybe they don't do this anymore. I don't know or care. But, um, it went something like I will guard everything with within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly relieved. And the fact that I still remember that says something because I can't remember anything. Um, and I probably got that pretty close. David said these are my sheep and I will either ensure their well being or I will die trying a courageous person has that conviction. Now, the funny thing is, is that he will have that conviction with pretty much everything they do. We think of courage as something that happens in a moment or is specific to something that's not the way it works. This is a deep, deep character trait and these people, they're intense when, when David shows up on the scene, he gets sent by his father who I don't have nice things to say about to uh take a bunch of supplies to his brothers and his brothers commanding officers, which that's kind of dirty if you ask me, but whatever. So, um, he's trying to care for his sons. Ok. That's all well and good. But he's also trying to bribe the officer. So his sons get better treatment. Um Contrast this with Uriah who I also have things that aren't nice to say about, but at least he was dedicated enough to his men that he wouldn't, the men he was serving with, he would not take conditions that were better than what they were facing while they were facing them. Um, anyway, so David shows up sent by his father with these supplies and he's like, hey, what's going on? And they say, oh, well, this guy Goliath, he's out there causing a ruckus and he wants us to send him a champion so he could fight him. And his reaction is awesome. You should go read it. It's awesome. And he doesn't just say this once he will not shut up about it. His brothers try to get him to shut up and then they accuse him of abandoning his sheep. Which is interesting because if you read before he makes special provision to make sure they're taken care of, even though they're his father's sheep and his father's releasing him from his duty to go do this other thing that his father assigns him to and he's still he loves his sheep. He won't just uh say, well, they're my father's problem now. So Jesus loves his sheep and Jesus is courageous. And when we are jesus' sheep, we can lean on the fact that he has power sufficient to overcome whatever currently overcomes us. That's the promise. So when we, when we follow him with all of our might, mind and strength with our full heart, we will find ourselves like David seeing challenges that other people are deathly afraid of and they're hiding in their tents just wishing it would go away. But every day it rears its ugly head and calls to be faced to be contented with and we will go right to it. The second we become aware of it, we will go right to it and s and defy it and defy it and you should go. I don't wanna steal his thunder. You should go read what David said and that, that is what will happen. The judgment shall return unto righteousness and all the upright and heart shall follow it. What does it mean for judgment to return unto righteousness? We could get really deep with this but let's just keep it to the point. I don't want to say superficial, but we'll just keep it brief. Justice will be paid. Justice will be paid. Sorry. My kids are being rude, they're playing piano. Well, I'm trying to do this. Our, our house is in functional disorder right now with guests coming and going. So I'm displaced from my normal room, but maybe one day, one day, if I work really hard, I'll have a house where I can have a room to myself to do things like this. Anyway. Um Justice will be served. That's what that means. And for the righteous, what does justice consisted? So we think of consequences as negative. No consequences can be good or bad. Um Justice can render promotion or demotion. It's gonna go one way or the other. It's, it's uh it is the case sometimes that justice has already been paid out and then nothing has to change. But in this world, it's usually one way or the other. So judgment shall return unto righteousness and all the upright and heart shall follow it . What does that mean? What it means is that when affliction, unmerited, affliction comes to the righteous think of job, right? Everybody jumps on the bandwagon and kicks the person when they're down, the more righteous they are the more universal that is Jesus was abandoned by everyone in his life. There was no mortal there with him, in his suffering, there was one angel, but that's it. But their suffering will always yield this promotion through justice when it's when it's rendered, when it's restored and all the upright and heart shall follow it. So there are multiple scriptures about how when God's justice comes, what that will result in and just to put it bluntly it will result in sufficient reasons for everyone who's left to follow God. That's the result. But that's the global justice. The um, well, let's just leave it at that. The big old end times justice causes all survivors to incline towards God and dedicate themselves to him. But what about the one offs? What about the smaller renditions? Well, what happened when job was restored? A glorified God? It more clearly illustrated that it is always the best thing you can do to serve God is always the best thing you can do while job was suffering. That was not the case. Um Although in the record, we don't have any examples of people saying job is a great example of why you shouldn't follow God. His friends sneered at him assuming that he had to be wicked in order to be suffering like this. But um we don't have any example of someone saying you see what happens when you follow God. Um But in the world, there are plenty of examples of that and in other parts of the scriptures, there are plenty of examples of this. I mean, what did the one fellow on the cross next to Jesus say to Him, if you're the son of God, why don't you pull yourself down from the cross? Why don't you get down and the the soldiers mocked him with the same chance. So in the suffering, um in the suffering, you will find plenty of people who interpret that as reasons not to believe. But they stopped mocking if the resurrection when, when Jesus is raised from the dead , when the earthquake is raging, when he's, when he's still up there, all of a sudden they go silent and they say other things like clearly, the God of nature suffers. This, this man is obviously who he says he was because of this earthquake, right? But the wise interpret that suffering as in even stronger evidence of the power of God. Because power uh to be happy, power to be raised to a realm of ecstasy is one thing. And that's what most people think about with heaven. But power power, the power of poise while in the depths of hell to me, that sure seems like a much greater power. But maybe other people would disagree when Jesus was in the pits of his own despair. He attended to the needs of his mother and his best friend and he comforted the man beside him and he forgave the soldiers. I know a lot of people that say they would do anything to have a glimpse of heaven, having seen that and also having seen the Lord on the cross, I would say if I had to choose one, I choose the second because in my times of trouble, I didn't find myself thinking the Lord Jesus, the king of heaven, surrounded by choirs of angels, one of the most elegant, beautiful robe I found myself chanting Jesus on the cross verse 16, who will rise up for me against evil doers and who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity. We could talk about that for quite some time. But part of, part of a very essential part of serving the Lord is doing what he would do and saying what he would say in your place. And you should read the New Testament and see what he said and when and what he did and why and what you'll find is that we have a responsibility. If we are going to follow the example of Christ, we have a responsibility to contend with evil. And this single verse gives us so much about how that is to be done. Rise up for me against the evil doers stand up for me against the workers of iniquity. How do you rise up? How do you stand up? It does not say put down, does not say go down, it says rise up, stand up so we could talk about loving people. We can talk about the glory of forgiving your bitter enemies. We can talk about the love of giving someone another chance, the love of giving someone more time. We could talk about becoming stronger, becoming less easily offended yourself, becoming more patient with people. And I don't mean tolerance, I mean intentional patience for the purpose of and efficaciously moving towards increasing the likelihood of their improvement, not ignoring stuff, but strategically orienting ourselves to their success and paying the price for that. But another thing that's very important to mention here is the need, the need to actually content. So teaching is an argument. I don't know if you realize that teaching is an argument. You can declare something without arguing. Although it's stronger if you do give persuasive evidence. But teaching is always an argument. You, you are not just sharing conclusions, you're sharing reasons for the person you're talking to or the people to believe what you're saying. And if you're not doing that, you're not teaching. So rising up against evil doers and standing up against the workers of iniquity, you have to have a sophistication here. It's not just uh standing on a street corner with a sign, right? You have to engage people in what they don't realize is evil. For example, you have to confront people when what they're doing, they think they're doing good things. You have to help show them if they're not right and people are going to hate you for it. And that's ok. That's what we're here for, right? Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence. A lot of people wish that I would dwell in silence, but it's not gonna happen when you stand up for the Lord. When you rise up for the Lord, people are going to wish that you would just shut up. That will be the most common and actually uh most innocent response to what you're doing and who you are and what, how you do it, you will, you will feel it radiating out of people. I wish he would just go away. I wish he would just shut up. But you can't. Now now saying that, you know, again, be strategic in your interactions, you can overdo it. But this is a reason. Did you know that Adam didn't stay with his posterity? They did not live together for his life, his lifetime. If you reread the account carefully, you'll see clear statements about how the generations and, and I'm not saying like just you know, the wicked or whatever the line of Adam, the the patriarchal line, patriarchal line, those people separated from Adam, they, they didn't remain together. In fact, there was more than one separation. Very interesting, a lot to learn from that. So there's a lot of strategy in all of this verse 18, when I said my foot slip, eth thy mercy. O Lord held me up. Uh foot is a very important word, but we'll just keep rolling here. Um The Lord supports his people. I have a very important point to make about that which I'll end with in the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul. Where does the comfort come from within or without eventually both. But in the process within comes from within, it's so important to have the Lord abide in you for many reasons. And one of them is that's where you're going to get your support. So the final point I want to make here, there's a, there's a verse from the Old Testament, um that says I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than dwell in the tents of the wicked. And um in our modern sense, you know, who wants to dwell in tents at all? Right? But back then that was um a prominent place of independence, right? So if you were the head of a household, a household in ancient times wasn't the set of people that live in a building, it was a tribe and maybe that tribe is just um a married couple and their Children, but usually it was a lot bigger than that, right? You'd have a whole bunch of servants and um an extended family as well. And um to dwell in a tent is to have your own thing going to be self sufficient . And is one analogous thing you could say, it's kind of like the same proverb is to say I'd rather be self employed selling peanuts then um working for anyone else. You know, I'm not saying these two things are equivalent, but it's gonna point your mind in the right direction, thinking about the, the same kinds of relationships. So, in, in this proverb though, it's, it's like reverse. So I've heard people say things like that I'd rather be self-employed, selling peanuts than work for anyone else ever again. But, um, in this, it's reversed. And you're saying, I'd rather be the lowest servant in the house of God than to have to be outside of his house. No matter how much power I had, no matter how much independence I had. Why, this is the culmination of what I've talked about here because when you're in the flock of the good shepherd, you're not just some goat out in the mountains who thinks he has his own thing going until he gets devoured by the bear or the lion. When you're a sheep, a lamb of the Lord, he is your protector. Now, what that does not mean is that you will never see a bear or a lion. In fact, it doesn't even mean that you're not gonna get eaten by a lion or a bear. That's the bad news, right? A lot of times you're gonna feel a lot worse than if you were getting eaten by a bear or a lion. I should say it's possible that you feel a lot worse than that. Here's the power though, in the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul. As long as your comfort, depends on external things and people that means that there exists a situation or multiple situations where you can lose your comfort. I've known so many comfort Christians. We'll call them. Oh, all is. Well, I'm so happy in the gospel. Jesus is great. Whatever, everything is great. And these people are the ones who lose their minds the most. When inevitably things aren't great, eventually they lose a kid, they lose their job, they lose their spouse or whatever happens. And a lot of whatevers are coming. A lot of whatevers are already here. If your comfort is based on your external situation, you do not have the peace that Jesus promised. You do not have the peace that surpasses all understanding. You don't have the peace that comes from one who has overcome all things because your peace is still dependent on those things. If you had peace within, you can walk into the fire, you can walk into the water and you will not be overcome. And even if the trials you face take your life, they will never make you wish you'd never been born. They will never overcome the comforts that delight your soul that come from God, into your soul, into your, into your internal self and radiate out to everyone else because you're in his flock. And when you're in the flock of the good shepherd, you can rest 100% assured and you can't have this confidence in any other situation. No matter, you could be the goat king on the mountain and have everything in the world you think. But tomorrow morning you wake up and it's all gone or you're dead and it's all gone. And you realize how little you had. But when you're in his flock, you can rest 100% assured that everything that happens to you is for your gain and is the most beneficial thing that could ever happen to you. That's the promise. That's the peace. That's what he offers as the good shepherd. But you can only have that if you follow him with all of your heart, all of the time because anything else is to leave his flock, even if you come back while you're gone, you're not there, you're not there and you're not protected. So I hope this is beneficial. Um I hope it gives you a little strength. The Lord is the lion of Judah and all who follow him will take upon themselves. His qualities including his courage is to have the courage of a lion because that's what he has and because of his strength, you can have his courage.